Progress 05/01/17 to 12/30/21
Outputs
Target Audience:This work has implications for several target audiences. These include beekeepers (both hobby and commercial), commodity crop farmers (soybean and corn), owners of small farms (such as CSAs), fruit and vegetable farmers, as well as conservationists interested in preserving and restoring native habitat. Through extension work, we have communicated with all of these stakeholders and the general public. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Former graduate student Ashley St. Clair has authored numerous publications related to the work, and transitioned to a postdoctoral position at the University of Illinois with coPI Dolezal, where she has secured a USDA Postdoctoral Fellowhip to pursue work related to this project in the future. Extension specialist Randall Cass has continued on in a research teaching-extension-honey production position at Iowa State University, where he continues to contribute productively to bee health related initiatives. Graduate student Kate Borchardt was supported as an RA to conduct an additional field study, addressing the potential benefits of prairie habitat (in the form of prairie strips) for wild bees and plant-interactions, in addition to studying effects of the presence of honey bees on wild bees in these prairie restorations. We provided valuable research experiences for multiple research assistants and undergraduates (Maria Cline, Joy Westercamp, Kenneth Snell, Kavita Jain, Paola Soto-Mendez, Olivia Meyer, David Stein, Morgan Moore, Ayrin Alexander, and Danielle Holthaus). How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?We continue to present our research findings to the scientific community and engage in education and outreach activities related to pollinator health and bee biology. This included our annual Pollinator Fest event at ISU's Reiman Gardens, attended by several hundred people (even with COVID-19 precautions in place). Randall Cass continued organizing and increasing the visibility of our program through social media and the Iowa State Pollinator Working Group website, the Iowa State Bees Instagram account with over 1000 followers, and presented 22 virtual talks at beekeepers' meetings, farmer meetings, and conservation group meetings. Cass has been actively developing the extension component of our project, involving website improvements and social media presence, developing extension materials, giving presentations and attending stakeholder meetings, and designing and conducting surveys of stakeholders. Cass has shared research results from this project, disseminating information to hundreds of people in the past year alone, and created extension publications and videos related to beekeeping and the use of CRP land for honey bee health. In addition, PIs Toth, O'Neal, and Dolezal and former student/postdoc Ashley St. Clair have been engaged with beekeeping organizations, giving multiple research update presentations per year at meetings such as the Iowa Honey Producers, Illinois Beekeepers, Central Iowa Beekeepers, andItalian ProfessionalBeekeeper AssociationUNAAPI. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?
Nothing Reported
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
IMPACT: In recent years, bee pollinators have experienced steep declines, with exceedingly high honey bee colony losses, and this pollinator shortage threatens the production of many pollinator-dependent crops. Bee losses have been linked to three major stresses, which may be exacerbated by agricultural land use itself: pesticides, pathogens/parasites, and poor forage. There is a need for strategies to manage pollinators that also allow for effective agricultural production. Focusing on the intensely cultivated Midwestern US, we are researching the potential benefits of using integrated pest management strategies in soybeans to reduce insecticide exposure, as well as providing bees with access to prairie habitat to provide diverse, nutritious forage. Using a realistic, field-based assessment, we examined the impacts of two management practices to improve bee health-- reduced insecticide usage, and use of prairie habitat to support nutritional health. Our findings thus far implicate improvements in honey bee colony health due to utilizing prairie habitat, and a small negative effect of pesticide use. These results can inform management practices to produce significant improvements in bee health; this can have an impact on decision making related to both farming and beekeeping practices in the future. The project also involves a substantial extension component, involving surveys of beekeepers, farmers, and other stakeholders, extension presentations and field days, and online extension materials development related to bee health and sustainable agriculture. To accomplish our objectives, we performed three years of replication (2017-2019) of a large-scale field experiment, comparing bee responses at different field sites (soybean throughout the season and prairie in late season) across Iowa. We monitored these hives biweekly throughout the entire season, from May to October, taking measures of bee population, brood production, hive weight, and collecting pollen samples to estimate forage abundance and diversity. We have compiled all of the final results from these field experiments, and these are summarized by objective below: Objectives (Goal) 1 and 2: Determine the value of IPM on bee health while maintaining crop production and Estimate the value of native perennial forage to honey bee health. Our experimental design consisted of a three year, longitudinal study of honey bee hives placed in soybean fields with or without insecticide application, and then half of the hives from each site were moved to restored prairies in the late season after soybean bloom ceased. This produced four main treatment groups (Insecticide+/Soybean, Insecticide+/Prairie, Insecticide- /Soybean, Insecticide-/Prairie). We compared honey bee health (weight, virus loads, and lipid stores) in soybean fields receiving a single foliar application of lambda-cyhalothrin, or without. Our data suggest overall increases in-hive weight, brood area, and bee population approximately one month after hives were placed on prairies, compared to hives that remained in soybean fields. The data suggest hive weight does not differ between soybean sites managed under different insecticide treatment regimes; however, the data do suggest "legacy" effects in which hives from insecticide-treated soybean fields failed to realize the full benefits of prairie habitat. Tracking hive mortality, we found no difference in winter survival between hives that were placed in prairies vs. those that remained in soybean fields. Overall, these findings provide some support for our hypothesis that prairie habitat can help to rescue bees from late season health decline, and suggest more subtle, long-term effects of insecticide exposure on colony health. This work is in the final stages of preparation for publication. Objective 3: At the same time, as the above collections also made biweekly collections, using modified pan traps called "bee bowls," of free flying wild pollinators from all field sites, in order to identify bee species present, their abundance, and diversity at all field sites. We developed a method to identify wild bees in the genus Lasioglossum down to morphospecies. The data from the wild bee sampling are currently being analyzed to study the interaction between insecticide treatment regime, honey bee presence, and prairie vs soybean landscape; this work is in preparation for an additional, separate publication. In addition, using laboratory assays, we assayed levels of viruses in honey bees and bumblebees collected from the soybean and prairie sites for several common honey bee viruses. Our results suggest bumble bees in prairie sites with honey bees may have increased exposure to common honey bee viruses such as deformed wing virus; however, we found no evidence of negative effects of honey bee presence on short-term measures of wild bee abundance/diversity. We conducted an exciting additional experiment in 2020-2021 that followed up on some of our prior results suggesting prairie habitat can provide large benefits to both honey bees and wild bee communities. We expanded this work by taking a more ecological perspective, examining wild bee-plant interactions. For this work, we focused on prairie strips, an agricultural practice that is gaining traction in Iowa and beyond in which a fraction of soy/corn fields are planted with native prairie plants, primarily to prevent soil erosion and improve soil health. Our prior work indicated these strips can benefit wild bees, even in the presence of honey bee colonies. Thus, graduate student Kate Borchardt extended this work to examine the effects on plant-bee networks. The results suggest more complex networks in prairie strips compared to control crop field (edge) sites, with higher support for rare species and more robust, resilient network structures in prairie strips. A manuscript has been prepared based on this work and will be submitted in May 2022. For each objective, Extension Specialist Randall Cass has been actively engaged in the extension component. In the last reporting period, much of this was done virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In the final reporting period, this involved the continuation of a program with frequent (22 so far in 2021-2022) presentations (e.g., Kansas Honey Producers, Iowa Honey Producers, Iowa Master Gardeners, etc.) and events (a frequent online meeting group Cass instigated in collaboration with Judy Wu-Smart at the University of Nebraska Lincoln ("HapBee Hour"). Research results from the NIFA funded project have been integrated into extension materials and presentations related to insecticide usage, beekeeping, and conservation management. Cass has a manuscript that will be submitted in May 2022, that describes the results of surveys of farmer and beekeeper attitudes and management practices related to bees and bee conservation. Survey results indicate high levels of landowner/farmer interest in pollinators and bee declines, and a tendency for beekeepers to underestimate the importance of forage and nutrition in bee health. Cass has also continued to actively maintain the Iowa State Bees Instagram account, posting photos, videos, and informational blurbs to over 1000 followers. We also produced two informational YouTube videos related to requeening hives and splitting and recombining hives. Through presentations across the region, we have reached over 2000 people during the course of this project.
Publications
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
ALS Clair, G Zhang, AG Dolezal, ME ONeal, AL Toth. 2022.
Agroecosystem landscape diversity shapes wild bee communities independent of managed honey bee presence.
Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment 327, 107826.
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2021
Citation:
G Zhang, AL St. Clair, AG Dolezal, AL Toth, ME ONeal. 2021.
Can Native Plants Mitigate Climate-related Forage Dearth for Honey Bees (Hymenoptera: Apidae)?
Journal of economic entomology 115 (1), 1-9.
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2021
Citation:
KE Borchardt, CL Morales, MA Aizen, AL Toth. 2021.
Plantpollinator conservation from the perspective of systems-ecology
Current opinion in insect science 47, 154-161.
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Submitted
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
RP Cass, EW Hodgson, ME ONeal, AL Toth, AG Dolezal. Surveys of Beekeepers, Farmers, and Landowners in Iowa (Midwestern USA) Reveal Collaborative Opportunities to Support Honey Bees and Pollinator Friendly Practices. Journal of Integrated Pest Management, To be Submitted in May 2022.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Cass, Randall. Which way forward for the MP3 Working Group and IPM4Bees?, American Bee Federation Annual Conference 2022, Las Vegas, Nevada, January 7th, 2022.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Cass, Randall. Explore Beekeeping, Iowa Vet Med Association Winter Conference, Altoona, IA February 10th, 2022
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Under Review
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
St. Clair AS, Suresh S, Dolezal AG. Pollen diets drive queen egg production phenotypes. Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems, in revision.
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Borchardt KE, Kadelka, C, and Toth, AL. An ecological networks approach reveals restored native habitat benefits wild bees in agroecosystems. To be Submitted in May 2022.
|
Progress 05/01/20 to 04/30/21
Outputs
Target Audience:This work has implications for several target audiences. These include beekeepers (both hobby and commercial), commodity crop farmers (soybean and corn), owners of small farms (such as CSAs), fruit and vegetable farmers, as well as conservationists interested in preserving and restoring native habitat. Through extension work, we have communicated with all of these stakeholders and the general public. Changes/Problems:Because we had an extension and some additional funds available at the end of our grant, we conducted an exciting additionalexperiment in 2020-2021 that followed up on some of our prior results from this NIFA supported project. Our prior results suggested prairie habitat can provide large benefits to both honey bees and wild bee communities. We expanded this work by taking a more ecological perspective,examining wild bee-plant interactions. For this work, we focused onprairie strips, an agricultural practice that is gaining traction in Iowa and beyond in which a fraction ofsoy/corn fields are planted with native prairie plants, primarily to prevent soil erosion and improve soil health. Our prior work indicated these strips can benefit wild bees, even in the presence of honey bee colonies. Thus, graduate student Kate Borchardt extended this work to examine the effects on plant-bee networks. Analyses are ongoing, but thus far, our results suggest more complex networks in prairie strips compared to control crop field (edge) sites. This work contributes to our growing understanding of the importance of seasonally available forage, nutrition, and habitat for bee health in a highly farmed landscape. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Former gaduate student Ashley St. Clair has authorednumerous publications related to the work, and transitioned toa postdoctoral position at the University of Illinois with coPI Dolezal, where she has secured a USDA Postdoctoral Fellowhip to pursue work related to this project in the future. Extension specialistRandall Cass has continued on in a researchteaching-extension-honey production position at Iowa State University, where he continues to contribute productively to beehealth related initiatives. Graduate student Kate Borchardt was supported as an RA to conduct an additional field study, addressing the potential benefits of prairie habitat (in the form of prairie strips) for wild bees and plant-interactions, in addition to studying effects of tghe presence of honey bees on wild bees in these prairie restorations. We provided valuable research experiences for multiple research assistants and undergraduates (Maria Cline, Joy Westercamp, Kenneth Snell, Kavita Jain, Paola Soto-Mendez, Olivia Meyer, David Stein, Morgan Moore, Ayrin Alexander, and Danielle Holthaus). How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?We continue to present our research findings to the scientific community and engage in education and outreach activities related to pollinator health and bee biology.Several of these activities were canceled or postponed in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.Randall Cass continued organizing and increasing the visibility of our program through social media and the Iowa State Pollinator Working Group website, theIowa State Bees Instagram account with over 1000 followers, and presented 32 virtualtalks at beekeepers' meetings, farmer meetings, and conservation group meetings. Cass has been actively developing the extension component of our project, involving website improvements and social media presence, developing extension materials, giving presentations and attending stakeholder meetings, and designing and conducting surveys of stakeholders. Cass has sharedresearch results from this project, disseminating information to hundreds of people in the past year alone, and created extension publications and videos related to beekeeping and the use of CRP land for honey bee health. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?The project has been highly productive, ending in December 2021. Our final analyses and writing are wrapping up, including plans to conduct pesticide analyses on pollen from the soybean sites to examine the potential for pesticide exposure in the insecticide and control sites. With all of the data in hand, we have shifted focus toward dissemination of results through peer-reviewed publications. As of April 2021, we have multiple publications in preparation, including a large paper describing the effects of the combination of pesticide exposure and prairie habitat on honey bee health, another paper describing differences in wild bee communities at these sites (both with and without honey bees), a paper describing the survey results and synthesizing attitudes and opportunities for farmer-beekeeper cooperation in the upper Midwest. We also plan to attend conferences (pandemic permitting) to share the results of the work more broadly with the scientific community, as well as engage in more in-person extension and outreach presentations and events.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
IMPACT: In recent years, bee pollinators have experienced steep declines, with exceedingly high honey bee colony losses, and this pollinator shortage threatens the production of many pollinator-dependent crops. Bee losses have been linked to three major stresses, which may be exacerbated by agricultural land use itself: pesticides, pathogens/parasites, and poor forage. We are in need of strategies to manage pollinators that also allow for effective agricultural production. Focusing on the intensely cultivated Midwestern US, we are researching the potential benefits of using integrated pest management strategies in soybeans to reduce insecticide exposure, as well as providing bees with access to prairie habitat to provide diverse, nutritious forage. Using a realistic, field-based assessment, we examined the impacts of two management practices to improve bee health-- reduced insecticide usage, and use of prairie habitat to support nutritional health. Our findings thus far implicate strong improvements in honey bee colony health due to utilizing prairie habitat, and a smallnegative effect of pesticide use. These results can inform management practices to produce significant improvements in bee health; this can have an impact on decision making related to both farming and beekeeping practices in the future. The project also involves a substantial extension component, involving surveys of beekeepers, farmers, and other stakeholders, extensionpresentations and field days, and online extension materials development related to bee health and sustainable agriculture. Accomplishments as of April 2021: To accomplish our objectives, we performed three years of replication (2017-2019) of a large-scale field experiment, comparing bee responses at different field sites (soybean throughout the season and prairie in late season) across Iowa. We monitored these hives biweekly throughout the entire season, from May to October, taking measures of bee population, brood production, hive weight, and collecting pollen samples to estimate forage abundance and diversity. As of April 2021, we compiled results from these field experiments, and data analysis are summarized by objective below: Objectives (Goal) 1 and 2: Determine the value of IPM on bee health while maintaining crop production and Estimate the value of native perennial forage to honey bee health. Our experimental design consisted of a three year, longitudinal study of honey bee hives placed in soybean fields with or without insecticide application, and then half of the hives from each site were moved to restored prairies in the late season after soybean bloom ceased. This produced four main treatment groups (Insecticide+/Soybean, Insecticide+/Prairie, Insecticide- /Soybean, Insecticide-/Prairie). We compared honey bee health (weight, virus loads, and lipid stores) in soybean fields receiving a single foliar application of lambda-cyhalothrin, or without. As of April 2021, our data suggest overall increases in-hive weight, brood area, and bee population approximately one month after hives were placed on prairies, compared to hives that remained in soybean fields. The data suggest hive weight does not differ between soybean sites managed under different insecticide treatment regimes; however, the data do suggest "legacy" effects in which hives from insecticide-treated soybean fields failed to realize the full benefits of prairie habitat. Tracking hive mortality, we found no difference in winter survival between hives that were placed in prairies vs. those that remained in soybean fields. Overall, these findings provide some preliminary support for our hypothesis that prairie habitat can help to rescue bees from late season health decline, and suggest more subtle, long-term effects of insecticide exposure on colony health. At the same time, we also made biweekly collections, using modified pan traps called "bee bowls," of free flying wild pollinators from all field sites, in order to identify bee species present, their abundance, and diversity at all field sites. We developed a method to identify wild bees in the genus Lasioglossum down to morphospecies, and are in the process of completing bee identification for all three years of data combined. In addition, using laboratory assays, we assayed levels of viruses in honey bees and bumblebees collected from the soybean and prairie sites for several common honey bee viruses. Our results suggest bumble bees in prairie sites with honey bees may have increased exposure to common honey bee viruses such as deformed wing virus; however, we found no evidence of negative effects of honey bee presence on short-term measures of wild bee abundance/diversity. Summaries of publications related to this work from reporting period: In St. Clair et al. 2020, we demonstrated benefits to both honey bee colonies (in terms of hive weight) and wild bees (in terms of community abundance and diversity) when comparing diversified fruit and vegetable farms to conventional soybean farms. This work contributes to our understanding of the important role of landscape and forage diversity for both managed and wild bee health. In Zhang et al. 2021, we collected and identified pollen collected by honey bee hives placed in restored prairie locations. We found that bees utilize native prairie plant species as forage, especially in the late season when crop and weedy species have senesced. This suggests native prairie can provide an important source of food for bees during a critical time in the season. In DeGrandi-Hoffmann et al. 2021, we utilized hives from theNIFA funded project to collaborate with the Tucson USDA Bee Lab. This work demonstrated seasonal differences in the nutritional composition of pollen collected by honey bees, helping us understand the seasonal fluctuations and nutritional requirements of honey bees. In Pritchard et al. 2021, we examined wild bee communities and bumble bee health indicators at prairies on which the NIFA project honey bee colonieshad been placed. We found no negative impact of honey bees on the abundance or diversity of foraging wild bees. We found some evidence that free flying bumblebees in prairies with apiaries were more likely to harbor honey bee viruses; however, the viral loads were very low. It remains to be determined if these low viral loads have any negative impact on wild bee health. For each objective, Extension Specialist Randall Cass has been actively engaged in the extension component. In the last reporting period, much of this was done virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This involved a large number (32) of presentations (e.g., with the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, ISU Extension and Outreach Communications, North Central IPM Center) and events (a frequent online meeting group Cass instigated in collaboration with Judy Wu-Smart at the University of Nebraska Lincoln ("HapBee Hour"). Research results from the NIFA funded project have been integrated into extension materials and presentations related to insecticide usage, beekeeping, and conservation management. Cass has a manuscript in preparation that describes the results of surveys of farmer and beekeeper attitudes and management practices related to bees and bee conservation. Survey results indicate high levels of landowner/farmer interest in pollinators and bee declines, and a tendency for beekeepers to underestimate the importance of forage and nutrition in bee health. Cass has also continued to actively maintain the Iowa State Bees Instagram account, posting photos, videos, and informational blurbs to over 1000 followers. We also produced two informational YouTube videos related to requeening hives and splitting and recombining hives. Through presentations across the region, we have reached over 2000 people during the course of this project.?
Publications
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
St. Clair, A.L., Zhang, G., Dolezal, A.G., ONeal, M.E. and Toth, A.L., 2020. Diversified farming in a monoculture landscape: effects on honey bee health and wild bee communities. Environmental Entomology, 49(3), pp.753-764.
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
Zhang, G., St. Clair, A.L., Dolezal, A.G., Toth, A.L. and ONeal, M.E., 2021. North American prairie is a source of pollen for managed honey bees (Hymenoptera: Apidae). Journal of Insect Science, 21(1), p.17.
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2021
Citation:
DeGrandi-Hoffman, G., Corby-Harris, V., Carroll, M., Toth, A.L., Gage, S., Watkins deJong, E., Graham, H., Chambers, M., Meador, C. and Obernesser, B., 2021. The Importance of Time and Place: Nutrient Composition and Utilization of Seasonal Pollens by European Honey Bees (Apis mellifera L.). Insects, 12(3), p.235.
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2021
Citation:
Pritchard, Z.A., Hendriksma, H.P., St Clair, A.L., Stein, D.S., Dolezal, A.G., ONeal, M.E. and Toth, A.L., 2021. Do viruses from managed honey bees (Hymenoptera: Apidae) endanger wild bees in native prairies?. Environmental entomology, 50(2), pp.455-466.
|
Progress 05/01/19 to 04/30/20
Outputs
Target Audience:This work has implications for several target audiences. These include beekeepers (both hobby and commercial), commoditycrop farmers (soybean and corn), owners of small farms (such as CSAs), fruit and vegetable farmers, as well asconservationists interested in preserving and restoring native habitat. Through extension work, we have communicated withall of these stakeholders and the general public. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Postdoctoral research associate Harmen Hendriksma secured a position in Germany as a bee researcher at the Julius KuhnInstitute. Graduate student Ashley St. Clair is first-authoring numerous publications related to the work, and has secured a postdoctoral position at the University of Illinois. Extension specialist, Randall Cass has continued on in a research-teaching-extension-honey production position at Iowa State University, where he continues to contribute productively to bee-health related initiatives. We provided valuable research experiences for multiple research assistants and undergraduates (Maria Cline, Joy Westercamp, Kenneth Snell,Kavita Jain, Paola Soto-Mendez, Olivia Meyer, David Stein). How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?We continue to engage in education and outreach activities to pollinator health and bee biology, however some of theseactivities were cancelled or postponed in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. PIs Toth and O'Neal, students Ashley St.Clair, and Ge Zhang, and Extension Specialist Randall Cass all gave conference presentations related to the work (at Entomological Society of America). Randall Cass has continued organizing and increasing the visibility of our program through social media and the Iowa StatePollinator Working Group website, launched an Iowa State Bees Instagram account with over 1000 followers, presented talks at beekeepers' meetings, farmer meetings, and conservation group meetings. Cass has been actively developing the extension component of our project, involving website improvements and social media presence, developing extension materials, giving presentations and attending stakeholder meetings, and designing and conducting surveys of stakeholders. Cass has given dozens of presentations across the region, discussing bee health, extension methods and efforts, as well as sharing research results from this project, disseminating information to hundreds of people in the past year alone. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?2019 marked the completion of the major field work for the main project described above. We are in the final stages of data analysis and manuscript writing related to the project, and are currently in the process of preparing numerous manuscripts to describe the results of this large, team based project. Pollen and wild bee identifications are ongoing and we project to finish them in early 2021; then data analysis and writing of results of the wild bee component of the work can commence. In the coming year, our extension program will continue to expand with additional presentations, field days, survey responses,and analysis and publication of survey results. ?
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
IMPACT: In recent years, bee pollinators have experienced steep declines, with exceedingly high honey bee colony losses,and this pollinator shortage threatens the production of many pollinator-dependent crops. Bee losses have been linked to three major stresses, which may be exacerbated by agricultural land use itself: pesticides, pathogens/parasites, and poorforage. We are in need of strategies to manage pollinators that also allow for effective agricultural production. Focusing on the intensely cultivated Midwestern US, we are researching the potential benefits of using integrated pest management strategies in soybeans to reduce insecticide exposure, as well as providing bees with access to prairie habitat to provide diverse, nutritious forage. To do this, we have tracked honey bee hive and individual bee health metrics throughout the year in the field,as well as effects on wild bee abundance and health indicators. Using a realistic, field-based assessment, we examined the impacts of two management practices to improve bee health--reduced insecticide usage, and use of prairie habitat to support nutritional health. Our findings thus far implicate strong improvements in honey bee colony health due to utilizing prairie habitat, and a small, positive effect of IPM/reduced pesticides. The analysis of the wild bees is ongoing.These results can inform management practices to produce significant improvements in bee health, this can have an impact on decision making related to both farming and beekeeping practices in the future. The project also involves a substantial extension component, involving surveys of beekeepers, farmers, and other stakeholders, extension presentations and field days, and online extension materials development related to bee health and sustainable agriculture. Accomplishments as of April 2020: To accomplish our objectives, we performed 3 years of replication (2017-2019) of a large scale field experiment, comparing bee responses at different field sites (soybean throughout the season and prairie in late season) across Iowa. We monitored these hives biweekly throughout the entire season, from May to October, taking measures of bee population, brood production, hive weight, and collecting pollensamples to estimate forage abundance and diversity. As of April 2020, we compiled results from these field experiments, and data analysis is ongoing; the results are starting to be prepared for several publications. The major findings thus far are summarized by objective below: Objectives (Goal) 1 and 2: Determine the value of IPM on bee health while maintaining crop production and Estimate the value of native perennial forage to honey bee health. Our experimental design consisted of a three year, longitudinal study of honey bee hives placed in soybean fields with or without insecticide application, and then half of the hives from each site were moved to restored prairies in the late season after soybean bloom ceased. This produced 4 main treatment groups (Insecticide+/Soybean, Insecticide+/Prairie, Insecticide-/Soybean, Insecticide-/Prairie). We compared honey bee health (weight, virus loads, and lipid stores) in soybean fields receiving a single foliar application of lamba-cyhalothrin, or without. Automatic hive monitors were also used on a subset of hives at each site to provide continuous monitoring of hive weight. Crop yield at each soybean site was also measured. As of April 2020, the in the laboratory, we have completed processing pollen samples to identify their plant source and mass, made substantial wild bee collections and have been working to to identify them and analyze bee communities. Individual health metrics were also taken on honey bees. Data were processed and analyzed to examine impacts of insecticide regime and prairie habitat on the health and abundance of both honey bees and wild bees. Our data suggest overall increases in-hive weight, brood area, and bee population approximately one month after hives were placed on prairies, compared to hives that remained in soybean fields. The data suggest hive weight does not differ between soybean sites managed under different insecticide treatment regimes, however, the data do suggest "legacy" effects in which hives from insecticide-treated soybean fields failed to realize the full benefits of prairie habitat. Tracking hive mortality, we found no difference in winter survival between hives that were placed in prairies vs those that remained in soybean fields. Overall, these findings provide some preliminary support for our hypothesis that prairie habitat can help to rescue bees from late season health decline, and suggest more subtle, long-term effects of insecticide exposure on colony health. Assess the impact of honey bees on wild bee populations, their health, and the risk of pathogen spillover At the same time, we also made biweekly collections, using modified pan traps called "bee bowls,"of free flying wild pollinators from all field sites, in order to identify bee species present, their abundance, and diversity at all field sites. We developed a method to identify wild bees in the genus Lasioglossum down to morphospecies, and are in the process of completing bee idenfitications for all three years of data combined. In addition, using laboratory assays, we assayed levels of viruses in honey bees and bumble bees collected from the soybean and prairie sites for several common honey bee viruses. Our results suggest bumble bees in prairie sites with honey bees may have increased exposure to common honey bee viruses such as deformed wing virus; however, we found no evidence of negative effects of honey bee presence on short-term measures of wild bee abundance/diversity. The foundational work for this project has already resulted in several publications, including a cover story in PNAS (see Products section) with numerous additional publications in preparation. Extension component For each objective, Extension Specialist Randall Cass has been actively engaged in the extension component. This involves presentations and events as well as surveys of farmer and beekeeper attitudes and management practices, and this information will be integrated into extension materials and presentations related to insecticide usage,beekeeping, and conservation management. Preliminary analysis of survey results indicate high levels of landowner/farmer interest in pollinators and bee declines. In 2019, we (spearheaded by Randall Cass) conducted an in-person workshop at Iowa State University entitlted "IPM4Bees" through Iowa State University, which involved active participation by around 50 individuals, discussing mite treatment and safe pesticide usage and their impacts on honey bee health. During this project period, we increased knowledge of the issue among the public through an Iowa State Bees Instagram account, with over 1000 followers. We also produced two informational YouTube videos related to checking for Varroa mites and requeening hives.Through presentations across the region, we have reached over 2000 people. In addition, in summer 2019 nearly 1000 people participated through a co-sponsored education/outreach event (Pollinator Fest) at Iowa State University's Reiman Gardens.
Publications
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
Zhang, G., St. Clair, A.L., Dolezal, A., Toth, A.L. and ONeal, M., 2020. Honey Bee (Hymenoptera: Apidae) Pollen Foragein a Highly Cultivated Agroecosystem: Limited Diet Diversity and Its Relationship to Virus Resistance. Journal of EconomicEntomology, 113(3), pp.1062-1072.
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
St Clair, A.L., Dolezal, A.G., ONeal, M.E. and Toth, A.L., 2020. Pan Traps for Tracking Honey Bee Activity-Density: ACase Study in Soybeans. Insects, 11(6), p.366
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2019
Citation:
Dolezal, A.G., Clair, A.L.S., Zhang, G., Toth, A.L. and ONeal, M.E., 2019. Native habitat mitigates feastfamine conditionsfaced by honey bees in an agricultural landscape. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 116(50), pp.25147-25155.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2019
Citation:
Clair, A.L.S., Dolezal, A.G., Zhang, G., O'Neal, M.E. and Toth, A.L., 2019, November. Impacts of landscape complexity and honey bee presence on wild bee community in a highly cultivated landscape. Entomological Society of America.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2019
Citation:
St. Clair, A.L.S. Combining crop production and conservation for improved bee health: impacts on honey bee queen quality.
3) North Central Branch of the Entomological Society of America.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2019
Citation:
Toth, A.L. "Nutritional health of honey bees in a changing world", Invited Talk, Apimondia World Conference.
|
Progress 05/01/18 to 04/30/19
Outputs
Target Audience:This work has implications for several target audiences. These include beekeepers (both hobby and commercial), commodity crop farmers (soybean and corn), owners of small farms (such as CSAs), fruit and vegetable farmers, as well as conservationists interested in preserving and restoring native habitat. Through extension work, we have communicated with all of these stakeholders and the general public. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?This project has provided valuable training and professional development experiences for four main project personnel: former postdoc and coPI Adam Dolezal, who is now in his second year as an Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois, postdoc Harmen Hendriksma, graduate student Ashley St. Clair, and Extension Specialist Randall Cass. We have also employed 2research assistants (David Stein and Olivia Meyer), as well as provided research experiences for 10 undergraduate students. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?We have also engaged in education and outreach activities that have highlighted pollinator health and issues related to the three bee stressors in this proposal: insecticide exposure, forage, and pathogens. We co-sponsored a highly successful community outreach event, Pollinator Fest, in summer 2017 and 2018 (again offered in 2019), with close to 1000 visitors each year passing through our exhibits at ISU's Reiman Gardens during the event. PIs Toth, Dolezal, and O;Neal,postdoc Hendriksma, and Extension Specialist Randall Casshave given presentations to beekeepers' associations in Iowa and Illinois, and Dolezal has presented to crop advisers and at a pest management workshop attended by farmer groups. Grad student Ashley St. Clair has served as an advisor for outreach and education activities with Ames High School's pollinator health program (A.S.A.P- Ames Students Assisting Pollinators), as well as given talks to local groups including the Audubon Society. Randall Cass has improved the Iowa State Pollinator Working Group website, launched an Iowa State Bees Instagram account with over 1000 followers, presented talks at beekeepers' meetings, farmer meetings, and conservation group meetings. Cass has been actively developing the extension component of our project, involving website improvements and social media presence, developing extension materials, giving presentations and attending stakeholder meetings, and designing and conducting surveys of stakeholders. Cass has given 60presentations across the region, discussing bee health, extension methods and efforts, as well as sharing research results from this project, to over 2000 people. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? During the coming project period, we plan to finish up the project. We now have a third year of field data on hive metrics, including mortality, hive monitoring data, and individual bee samples. Grad student St. Clair is compiling the full honey bee datasets and performing an overall analysis of the three years of field data, and we plan to synthesize these results and publish a paper on them in the coming year. Postdoc Hendriksmahasanalyzed virus titers from bees from field seasons 2017-2018, as well as expression of immune and nutritional health related genes, and are preparing a publication from these results. St. Clair and research assistants have identified most of the wild bee samples from all three years of the field experiment; we will analyze these results and prepare an additional publication focused on wild bee responses to insecticide regime and prairie habitat. coPI Dolezal has also been conducting cage experiments on pesticide and diet effects on honey bee survival and health, and those results will be replicated using field-relevant pesticide findings in the final year of the project. Cass will continue extension presentations, field days, and will synthesize the results of the survey work into an extension publication in the coming year.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
IMPACT: In recent years, bee pollinators have experienced steep declines, with exceedingly high honey bee colony losses, and this pollinator shortage threatens the production of many pollinator-dependent crops. Bee losses have been linked to three major stresses, which may be exacerbated by agricultural land use itself: pesticides, pathogens/parasites, and poor forage. We are in need of strategies to manage pollinators that also allow for effective agricultural production. Focusing on the intensely cultivated Midwestern US, we are researching the potential benefits of using integrated pest management strategies in soybeans to reduce insecticide exposure, as well as providing bees with access to prairie habitat to provide diverse, nutritious forage. To do this, we are tracking honey bee hive and individual bee health metrics throughout the year in the field, as well as tracking effects on wild bee abundance and health indicators. The goal of this project is to produce a realistic, field based assessment of two management practices to improve bee health--reduced insecticide usage through IPM, and use of prairie habitat to support nutritional health. If one or both of these management practices have significant effects on bee health, this can have an impact on decision making related to both farming and beekeeping practices in the future. The project also involves a substantial extension component, involving surveys of beekeepers, farmers, and other stakeholders, extension presentations and field days, and online extension materials development related to bee health and sustainable agriculture. To accomplish our objectives, we placed numerous (n=36 in 2017 and n=36 in 2018) hives at different field sites (soybean throughout the season and prairie in late season) across Iowa and monitored these hives biweekly throughout the entire season, from May to October, taking measures of bee population, brood production, hive weight, and collecting pollen samples to estimate forage abundance and diversity. For this reporting period (as of April 2019), we were compilingresults from our first two years of a three year field experiments, with a third year of replication conducted in summer 2019 (results currently being compiled).Automatic hive monitors were also used on a subset of hives at each site to provide continuous monitoring of hive weight. At the same time, we also made biweekly collections, using modified pan traps called "bee bowls", of free flying wild pollinators from all field sites including additional prairie sites without honey bees, in order to identify bee species present, their abundance, and diversity at all field sites. Crop yield at each soybean site was also measured. We also tracked colony survival throughout the following winter of 2017-2018. We are currently performing a complete second year replication of all of these field data in the summer 2018. In the laboratory, we processedpollen samples to identify their source and mass, made substantialwild bee collections and have been working to to identify them and analyze bee communities. Individual health metrics were also taken on honey bees. Data were processed and analyzed to examine impacts of insecticide regime and prairie habitat on the health and abundance of both honey bees and wild bees. In addition, using laboratory assays, we assayed levels of viruses in honey bees and bumble bees collected from the soybean and prairie sites for several common honey bee viruses. In the future, we will also use experimental (lab) studies to examine how pesticide exposure (derived from field levels from our own pollen collections) influences these bees' resilience to viral infection. For each objective, we have an extension component involving surveys of farmer and beekeeper attitudes and management practices, and this information will be integrated into extension materials and presentations related to insecticide usage, beekeeping, and conservation management. During this project period we increased knowledge of the issue among the public through an Iowa State Bees Instragram account, with over 1000 followers. And through presentations across the region, we reached over 2000people. In addition, nearly 1000 people were reached through a co-sponsored event at Iowa State University's Reiman Gardens. As of April 2019, our preliminary results indicated no effect of insecticide treatment on honey bee hive metrics, and indicated a significant positive effect of prairie habitat on colony grown in 2017, but not 2018. Athird year of replication was conducted in summer 2019, as it has become clear thatmulti-year replication will be necessary due to the large field scale of the project and inter-annual variability. At this stage in the project, we have promising results from our first two years of field experiments, but we note that additional replication is necessary and thus conclusions are tentative (not yet published). Our data suggest year-specific increases in hive weight, brood area, and bee population approximately one month after hives were placed on prairies, compared to hives that remained in soybean fields. The data suggest hive weight does not differ between soybean sites managed under different insecticide treatment regimes. Tracking hive mortality, we found no difference in survival between hives that were placed in prairies vs those that remained in soybean fields. Overall, these findings provide some preliminary support for our hypothesis that prairie habitat can help to rescue bees from late season health decline.
Publications
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2019
Citation:
Hendriksma, H.P., Toth, A.L., Shafir, S. 2019. Individual and colony level foraging decisions of bumble bees and honey bees in relation to balancing of nutrient needs. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution 7: 177.
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2019
Citation:
Rutter, L., Carrillo-Tripp, J.,�Bonning, B.C., Cook, D., Toth, A.L., Dolezal, A.G. 2019. Transcriptomic responses to diet quality and viral infection in�Apis mellifera.�BMC Genomics�20 (1):�412
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2019
Citation:
St. Clair, A., Zhang, G., Stein, D., Dolezal, A., Hendriksma, H., Cass, R., ONeal, M., Toth, A. "Combining crop production and conservation for improved bee health: impacts on honey bee queen quality". Presented in ten minute paper session P-IE Ph.D. Competition Session 2 at the North Central Branch meeting of the Entomological Society of America in Cincinnati, OH, March 2019
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2018
Citation:
Cass, Randall Extension tailored to fit your audience: Enhancing survey tools with Importance Performance Analysis, Entomological Society of America Annual Conference, Vancouver, BC November 2018
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2019
Citation:
Dolezal, A.G., Entomological Society of America North Central Branch meeting, Cincinnati, OH. In Program Symposium Monitoring, miticide, and mitigation: What IPM strategies improve honey bee and native bee health. Honey bee health in Midwestern rowcrop agriculture March 2019
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2018
Citation:
Dolezal, A.G. Entomological Society of America National Meeting, Vancouver, BC, Canada. In Section Symposium From Genes to Communities: Quantifying Diverse Responses of Pollinators to Multiple Anthropogenic Stressors. Understanding bee health in Midwestern row crop agriculture: Insights from an intensified landscape. November 2018
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2019
Citation:
Cass, R. Conference Poster, "Sweet Success in Small-Scale Honey Production",
Horticultural Innovation Lab USAID Conference in Washington D.C., March 2019
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2019
Citation:
Cass, R. Conference Poster "What does Save the Bees Mean Anyway?", Entomological Society of America NCB Conference, March 2019
|
Progress 05/01/17 to 04/30/18
Outputs
Target Audience:This work has implications for several target audiences. These include beekeepers (both hobby and commercial), commodity crop farmers (soybean and corn), owners of small farms (such as CSAs), fruit and vegetable farmers, as well as conservationists interested in preserving and restoring native habitat. Through extension work, we have communicated with all of these stakeholders and the general public. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?The project has already had important impacts on human resources development. CoPD Dolezal has transitioned from a postdoctoral position to a tenure track faculty position at the University of Illinois, and has continued to collaborate on the project. We hired a new postdoctoral research associate, Harmen Hendriksma, who began in September 2017, and a new extension specialist, Randall Cass, in October 2018. We also provided valuable research experiences for multiple undergraduates (Zoe Pritchard, Miles Lichtenstein, Alanah Charles, Maria Cline, Ian Buchwald) and two local beekeepers (Linn Wilbur and Tyler Lane). The project has also benefited from major contributions from PhD graduate student Ashley St. Clair, who has also begun studying the health of the queens of the colonies in the experiment as a spinoff project (supported by a grant from the Eastern Apicultural Society), with highly promising results suggesting effects of both prairie habitat and reduced insecticide usage on queen fecundity. We also hired a research associate who is assisting part time with the field work and lab work associated with this project (David Stein). How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?We have also engaged in education and outreach activities that have highlighted pollinator health and issues related to the three bee stressors in this proposal: insecticide exposure, forage, and pathogens. We co-sponsored a highly successful community outreach event, Pollinator Fest, in summer 2017 and 2018, with close to 1000 visitors each year passing through our exhibits at ISU's Reiman Gardens during the event. PIs Toth andDolezal, and postdoc Hendriksma have given presentations to beekeepers' associations in Iowa and Illinois, and Dolezal has presented to crop advisers and at a pest management workshop attended by farmer groups. Grad student Ashley St. Clair has served as an advisor for outreach and education activities with Ames High School's pollinator health program (A.S.A.P- Ames Students Assisting Pollinators), as well as given talks to local groups including the Audubon Society. Randall Cass has improved the Iowa State Pollinator Working Group website, launched an Iowa State Bees Instagram account with over 700 followers, presented talks at beekeepers' meetings, farmer meetings, and conservation group meetings. Cass has been actively developing the extension component of our project, involving website improvements and social media presence, developing extension materials, giving presentations and attending stakeholder meetings, and designing and conducting surveys of stakeholders. Cass has given 28 presentations across the region, discussing bee health, extension methods and efforts,as well as sharingresearch results from this project, to over 700 people. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?After finishing field data collection in early October 2018, we will enter and process the complete honey bee hive field data and pollen, pool the results from both years, and reanalyze the data to see if the trends from year 1 hodl up. We will also finish our ongoing efforts to identify all of the bees from our wild bee sampling efforts, and finish processing and analyzing honey bee samples in the laboratory for individual health indicators. We will also send pollen samples for pesticide analysis. In summer 2019, we will also begin Objective 2B, which involves treating caged bees with different representative combinations of pollen diets and pesticide exposure levels, informed by the results from our 2017-18 field seasons. Our extension program will continue to expand with additional presentations, survey responses, and analysis of survey results in the coming year.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Impact Statement: In recent years, bee pollinators have experienced steep declines, with exceedingly high honey bee colony losses, and this pollinator shortage threatens the production of many pollinator-dependent crops. Bee losses have been linked to three major stresses, which may be exacerbated by agricultural land use itself: pesticides, pathogens/parasites, and poor forage. We are in need of strategies to manage pollinators that also allow for effective agricultural production. Focusing on the intensely cultivated Midwestern US, we are researching the potential benefits of using integrated pest management strategies in soybeans to reduce insecticide exposure, as well as providing bees with access to prairie habitat to provide diverse, nutritious forage. To do this, we are tracking honey bee hive and individual bee health metrics throughout the year in the field, as well as tracking effects on wild bee abundance and health indicators. The goal of this project is to produce a realistic, field based assessment of two management practices to improve bee health--reduced insecticide usage through IPM, and use of prairie habitat to support nutritional health. If one or both of these management practices have significant effects on bee health, this can have an impact on decision making related to both farming and beekeeping practices in the future. At this stage in the project, we have promising results from our first year of field experiments, but we note that additional replication is necessary and thus conclusions are tentative (and not yet published).However, this project period we increased knowledge of the issue among the public through an Iowa State Bees Instragram account, with over 700 followers. And through presentations across the region, we reached over 700 people. In addition, nearly 1000 people were reached through a co-sponsored event at Iowa State University's Reiman Gardens. To accomplish our objectives, we placed numerous (n=36 in 2017 and n=36 in 2018) hives at different field sites (soybean throughout the season and prairie in late season) across Iowa and monitored these hives biweekly throughout the entire season, from May to October, taking measures of bee population, brood production, hive weight, and collecting pollen samples to estimate forage abundance and diversity. Automatic hive monitors were also used on a subset of hives at each site to provide continuous monitoring of hive weight. At the same time, we also made biweekly collections, using modified pan traps called "bee bowls", of free flying wild pollinators from all field sites including additional prairie sites without honey bees, in order to identify bee species present, their abundance, and diversity at all field sites. Crop yield at each soybean site was also measured. We also tracked colony survival throughout the following winter of 2017-2018. We are currently performing a complete second year replication of all of these field data in the summer 2018. In the laboratory, we have been processing pollen samples to identify their source and mass, processing wild bee collections to identify them and take individual health metrics (size, lipid stores). Individual health metrics were also taken on honey bees. Data were processed and analyzed to examine impacts of insecticide regime and prairie habitat on the health and abundance of both honey bees and wild bees. In addition, using laboratory assays, we assayed levels of viruses in honey bees and bumble bees collected from the soybean and prairie sites for several common honey bee viruses. In the future, we will also use experimental (lab) studies to examine how pesticide exposure (derived from field levels from our own pollen collections) influences these bees' resilience to viral infection. For each objective, we have an extension component involving surveys of farmer and beekeeper attitudes and management practices, and this information will be integrated into extension materials and presentations related to insecticide usage, beekeeping, and conservation management. We are currently nearing the end of our second field season, after having performed one complete yearly replicate of our large-scale field experiment (Objectives 1 and 2) in 2017. We are in the process of replicating this again in years 2 (with the possibility of a third year of replication in year 3), as multi-year replication will be necessary due to the large field scale of the project. At this stage in the project, we have promising results from our first year of field experiments, but we note that additional replication is necessary and thus conclusions are tentative (and not yet published). Our data suggest significant increases in hive weight, brood area, and bee population approximately one month after hives were placed on prairies, compared to hives that remained in soybean fields. The data suggest hive weight does not differ between soybean sites managed under different insecticide treatment regimes.Tracking hive mortality, we found no difference in survival between hives that were placed in prairies vs those that remained in soybean fields; however, there was a strong trend in the predicted direction (higher survival in prairie hives). We did find that hive weight was a significant predictor of overwintering survival--that is, heavier hives were more likely to make it through the winter, a finding that is not unexpected. Overall, these findings provide some preliminary support for our hypothesis that prairie habitat can help to rescue bees from late season health decline. In this past year, we hired a new postdoctoral research associate, Harmen Hendriksma, and a new extension specialist, Randall Cass, both of whom began in fall 2017.
Publications
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2018
Citation:
Dolezal, A. G., & Toth, A. L. (2018). Feedbacks between nutrition and disease in honey bee health. Current opinion in insect science.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2017
Citation:
Dolezal, A.G. Entomological Society of America National Meeting, Denver, CO. In Member Symposium Pollinator Nutrition: Lessons from Bees at Individual to Landscape Levels, The where and when of honey bee decline in an agricultural landscape November 2017
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2018
Citation:
St. Clair, A. and Dolezal, A.G. Entomological Society of America North Central Branch meeting, Madison, WI. Program symposium: Pollination research in the North Central Region, The where and when of honey bee decline in an agricultural landscape March 2018
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2018
Citation:
Hendriksma, H. International Committee for Plant-Pollinator Interactions Symposium, Berlin, Germany. "Little Hive on the Prairie: A Tale of Three Ps." April 2018.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2017
Citation:
Hendriksma, H. Entomological Society of America, Denver, CO. Poster presentation: "A prairie hive companion: Can prairies help honey bee colonies thrive in intensively cultivated landscapes?" November 2017.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2018
Citation:
St. Clair, A. Entomological Society of America North Central Branch meeting, Madison, WI. Student talk: "Queen of the prairie: Can honey bee queen fecundity be rescued by prairie in a cultivated landscape?" March 2018.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2018
Citation:
Pritchard, Z. Entomological Society of America North Central Branch meeting, Madison, WI. Student talk: "Effects of honey bee colony presence on bumble bee populations in Iowa prairies". March 2018.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2018
Citation:
St. Clair, A. International Union for the Study of Social Insects Congress, Guaruja, Brazil. Symposium on Social Insect Ecophysiology, Talk: "Colonies under extreme stress: is the queen buffered?" July 2018.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2017
Citation:
St. Clair, A. Entomological Society of America, Denver, CO. Poster presentation: "Can providing diverse fall habitat for honey bees rescue colonies from pre-overwintering health declines in Iowa?" November 2017.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2018
Citation:
Cass, R. Entomological Society North Central Branch Meeting, Madison, WI. Rethinking Extension Methodologies, Lessons from Beekeepers in El Salvador March 2018.
|
|